CHAPTER VI

NECESSARY PRACTICE

[Illustration: 043.jpg Illustrated Capital]

About the rest of all that winter I remember very little, being only a

young boy then, and missing my father most out of doors, as when it

came to the bird-catching, or the tracking of hares in the snow, or

the training of a sheep-dog. Oftentimes I looked at his gun, an ancient

piece found in the sea, a little below Glenthorne, and of which he was

mighty proud, although it was only a match-lock; and I thought of the

times I had held the fuse, while he got his aim at a rabbit, and once

even at a red deer rubbing among the hazels. But nothing came of my

looking at it, so far as I remember, save foolish tears of my own

perhaps, till John Fry took it down one day from the hooks where

father's hand had laid it; and it hurt me to see how John handled it, as

if he had no memory.

“Bad job for he as her had not got thiccy the naight as her coom acrass

them Doones. Rackon Varmer Jan 'ood a-zhown them the wai to kingdom

come, 'stead of gooin' herzel zo aisy. And a maight have been gooin' to

market now, 'stead of laying banked up over yanner. Maister Jan, thee

can zee the grave if thee look alang this here goon-barryel. Buy now,

whutt be blubberin' at? Wish I had never told thee.”

“John Fry, I am not blubbering; you make a great mistake, John. You are

thinking of little Annie. I cough sometimes in the winter-weather, and

father gives me lickerish--I mean--I mean--he used to. Now let me have

the gun, John.”

“Thee have the goon, Jan! Thee isn't fit to putt un to thy zhoulder.

What a weight her be, for sure!”

“Me not hold it, John! That shows how much you know about it. Get out

of the way, John; you are opposite the mouth of it, and likely it is

loaded.”

John Fry jumped in a livelier manner than when he was doing day-work;

and I rested the mouth on a cross rack-piece, and felt a warm sort

of surety that I could hit the door over opposite, or, at least, the

cobwall alongside of it, and do no harm in the orchard. But John would

not give me link or fuse, and, on the whole, I was glad of it, though

carrying on as boys do, because I had heard my father say that the

Spanish gun kicked like a horse, and because the load in it came from

his hand, and I did not like to undo it. But I never found it kick very

hard, and firmly set to the shoulder, unless it was badly loaded. In

truth, the thickness of the metal was enough almost to astonish one; and

what our people said about it may have been true enough, although most

of them are such liars--at least, I mean, they make mistakes, as all

mankind must do. Perchance it was no mistake at all to say that this

ancient gun had belonged to a noble Spaniard, the captain of a fine

large ship in the “Invincible Armada,” which we of England managed to

conquer, with God and the weather helping us, a hundred years ago or

more--I can't say to a month or so.

After a little while, when John had fired away at a rat the charge I

held so sacred, it came to me as a natural thing to practise shooting

with that great gun, instead of John Fry's blunderbuss, which looked

like a bell with a stalk to it. Perhaps for a boy there is nothing

better than a good windmill to shoot at, as I have seen them in flat

countries; but we have no windmills upon the great moorland, yet here

and there a few barn-doors, where shelter is, and a way up the hollows.

And up those hollows you can shoot, with the help of the sides to lead

your aim, and there is a fair chance of hitting the door, if you lay

your cheek to the barrel, and try not to be afraid of it.

[Illustration: 045.jpg Won skill in target practice]

Gradually I won such skill, that I sent nearly all the lead gutter from

the north porch of our little church through our best barn-door, a thing

which has often repented me since, especially as churchwarden, and made

me pardon many bad boys; but father was not buried on that side of the

church.

But all this time, while I was roving over the hills or about the farm,

and even listening to John Fry, my mother, being so much older and

feeling trouble longer, went about inside the house, or among the maids

and fowls, not caring to talk to the best of them, except when she broke

out sometimes about the good master they had lost, all and every one

of us. But the fowls would take no notice of it, except to cluck for

barley; and the maidens, though they had liked him well, were thinking

of their sweethearts as the spring came on. Mother thought it wrong of

them, selfish and ungrateful; and yet sometimes she was proud that none

had such call as herself to grieve for him. Only Annie seemed to go

softly in and out, and cry, with nobody along of her, chiefly in the

corner where the bees are and the grindstone. But somehow she would

never let anybody behold her; being set, as you may say, to think it

over by herself, and season it with weeping. Many times I caught her,

and many times she turned upon me, and then I could not look at her, but

asked how long to dinner-time.

Now in the depth of the winter month, such as we call December, father

being dead and quiet in his grave a fortnight, it happened me to be out

of powder for practice against his enemies. I had never fired a shot

without thinking, “This for father's murderer”; and John Fry said that

I made such faces it was a wonder the gun went off. But though I could

hardly hold the gun, unless with my back against a bar, it did me good

to hear it go off, and hope to have hitten his enemies.

“Oh, mother, mother,” I said that day, directly after dinner, while she

was sitting looking at me, and almost ready to say (as now she did seven

times in a week), “How like your father you are growing! Jack, come here

and kiss me”--“oh, mother, if you only knew how much I want a shilling!”

“Jack, you shall never want a shilling while I am alive to give thee

one. But what is it for, dear heart, dear heart?”

“To buy something over at Porlock, mother. Perhaps I will tell you

afterwards. If I tell not it will be for your good, and for the sake of

the children.”

“Bless the boy, one would think he was threescore years of age at least.

Give me a little kiss, you Jack, and you shall have the shilling.”

For I hated to kiss or be kissed in those days: and so all honest boys

must do, when God puts any strength in them. But now I wanted the powder

so much that I went and kissed mother very shyly, looking round the

corner first, for Betty not to see me.

But mother gave me half a dozen, and only one shilling for all of them;

and I could not find it in my heart to ask her for another, although I

would have taken it. In very quick time I ran away with the shilling

in my pocket, and got Peggy out on the Porlock road without my mother

knowing it. For mother was frightened of that road now, as if all the

trees were murderers, and would never let me go alone so much as a

hundred yards on it. And, to tell the truth, I was touched with fear for

many years about it; and even now, when I ride at dark there, a man by

a peat-rick makes me shiver, until I go and collar him. But this time

I was very bold, having John Fry's blunderbuss, and keeping a sharp

look-out wherever any lurking place was. However, I saw only sheep and

small red cattle, and the common deer of the forest, until I was nigh to

Porlock town, and then rode straight to Mr. Pooke's, at the sign of the

Spit and Gridiron.

Mr. Pooke was asleep, as it happened, not having much to do that day;

and so I fastened Peggy by the handle of a warming-pan, at which she

had no better manners than to snort and blow her breath; and in I walked

with a manful style, bearing John Fry's blunderbuss. Now Timothy Pooke

was a peaceful man, glad to live without any enjoyment of mind at

danger, and I was tall and large already as most lads of a riper age.

Mr. Pooke, as soon as he opened his eyes, dropped suddenly under the

counting-board, and drew a great frying-pan over his head, as if the

Doones were come to rob him, as their custom was, mostly after the

fair-time. It made me feel rather hot and queer to be taken for a

robber; and yet methinks I was proud of it.

“Gadzooks, Master Pooke,” said I, having learned fine words at Tiverton;

“do you suppose that I know not then the way to carry firearms? An it

were the old Spanish match-lock in the lieu of this good flint-engine,

which may be borne ten miles or more and never once go off, scarcely

couldst thou seem more scared. I might point at thee muzzle on--just so

as I do now--even for an hour or more, and like enough it would never

shoot thee, unless I pulled the trigger hard, with a crock upon my

finger; so you see; just so, Master Pooke, only a trifle harder.”

“God sake, John Ridd, God sake, dear boy,” cried Pooke, knowing me by

this time; “don't 'e, for good love now, don't 'e show it to me, boy,

as if I was to suck it. Put 'un down, for good, now; and thee shall have

the very best of all is in the shop.”

“Ho!” I replied with much contempt, and swinging round the gun so that

it fetched his hoop of candles down, all unkindled as they were: “Ho!

as if I had not attained to the handling of a gun yet! My hands are cold

coming over the moors, else would I go bail to point the mouth at you

for an hour, sir, and no cause for uneasiness.”

But in spite of all assurances, he showed himself desirous only to see

the last of my gun and me. I dare say “villainous saltpetre,” as the

great playwright calls it, was never so cheap before nor since. For my

shilling Master Pooke afforded me two great packages over-large to go

into my pockets, as well as a mighty chunk of lead, which I bound upon

Peggy's withers. And as if all this had not been enough, he presented me

with a roll of comfits for my sister Annie, whose gentle face and pretty

manners won the love of everybody.

There was still some daylight here and there as I rose the hill above

Porlock, wondering whether my mother would be in a fright, or would not

know it. The two great packages of powder, slung behind my back, knocked

so hard against one another that I feared they must either spill or blow

up, and hurry me over Peggy's ears from the woollen cloth I rode

upon. For father always liked a horse to have some wool upon his loins

whenever he went far from home, and had to stand about, where one

pleased, hot, and wet, and panting. And father always said that saddles

were meant for men full-grown and heavy, and losing their activity; and

no boy or young man on our farm durst ever get into a saddle, because

they all knew that the master would chuck them out pretty quickly. As

for me, I had tried it once, from a kind of curiosity; and I could not

walk for two or three days, the leather galled my knees so. But now, as

Peggy bore me bravely, snorting every now and then into a cloud of air,

for the night was growing frosty, presently the moon arose over the

shoulder of a hill, and the pony and I were half glad to see her, and

half afraid of the shadows she threw, and the images all around us. I

was ready at any moment to shoot at anybody, having great faith in my

blunderbuss, but hoping not to prove it. And as I passed the narrow

place where the Doones had killed my father, such a fear broke out upon

me that I leaned upon the neck of Peggy, and shut my eyes, and was cold

all over. However, there was not a soul to be seen, until we came home

to the old farmyard, and there was my mother crying sadly, and Betty

Muxworthy scolding.

“Come along, now,” I whispered to Annie, the moment supper was over;

“and if you can hold your tongue, Annie, I will show you something.”

She lifted herself on the bench so quickly, and flushed so rich with

pleasure, that I was obliged to stare hard away, and make Betty look

beyond us. Betty thought I had something hid in the closet beyond the

clock-case, and she was the more convinced of it by reason of my denial.

Not that Betty Muxworthy, or any one else, for that matter, ever found

me in a falsehood, because I never told one, not even to my mother--or,

which is still a stronger thing, not even to my sweetheart (when I grew

up to have one)--but that Betty being wronged in the matter of marriage,

a generation or two agone, by a man who came hedging and ditching, had

now no mercy, except to believe that men from cradle to grave are liars,

and women fools to look at them.

When Betty could find no crime of mine, she knocked me out of the way in

a minute, as if I had been nobody; and then she began to coax “Mistress

Annie,” as she always called her, and draw the soft hair down her hands,

and whisper into the little ears. Meanwhile, dear mother was falling

asleep, having been troubled so much about me; and Watch, my father's

pet dog, was nodding closer and closer up into her lap.

“Now, Annie, will you come?” I said, for I wanted her to hold the ladle

for melting of the lead; “will you come at once, Annie? or must I go for

Lizzie, and let her see the whole of it?”

“Indeed, then, you won't do that,” said Annie; “Lizzie to come before

me, John; and she can't stir a pot of brewis, and scarce knows a tongue

from a ham, John, and says it makes no difference, because both are

good to eat! Oh, Betty, what do you think of that to come of all her

book-learning?”

“Thank God he can't say that of me,” Betty answered shortly, for she

never cared about argument, except on her own side; “thank he, I says,

every marning a'most, never to lead me astray so. Men is desaving and so

is galanies; but the most desaving of all is books, with their heads

and tails, and the speckots in 'em, lik a peg as have taken the maisles.

Some folk purtends to laugh and cry over them. God forgive them for

liars!”

It was part of Betty's obstinacy that she never would believe in reading

or the possibility of it, but stoutly maintained to the very last that

people first learned things by heart, and then pretended to make them

out from patterns done upon paper, for the sake of astonishing honest

folk just as do the conjurers. And even to see the parson and clerk was

not enough to convince her; all she said was, “It made no odds, they

were all the same as the rest of us.” And now that she had been on

the farm nigh upon forty years, and had nursed my father, and made his

clothes, and all that he had to eat, and then put him in his coffin, she

was come to such authority, that it was not worth the wages of the best

man on the place to say a word in answer to Betty, even if he would face

the risk to have ten for one, or twenty.

Annie was her love and joy. For Annie she would do anything, even so far

as to try to smile, when the little maid laughed and danced to her. And

in truth I know not how it was, but every one was taken with Annie at

the very first time of seeing her. She had such pretty ways and manners,

and such a look of kindness, and a sweet soft light in her long blue

eyes full of trustful gladness. Everybody who looked at her seemed to

grow the better for it, because she knew no evil. And then the turn she

had for cooking, you never would have expected it; and how it was her

richest mirth to see that she had pleased you. I have been out on the

world a vast deal as you will own hereafter, and yet have I never seen

Annie's equal for making a weary man comfortable.